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Doctors testify in trial of Carlsbad man accused in 2004 death of 1-year-old

By Taryn Walkertwalker@currentargus.com

Posted:
02/02/2013 09:53:55 AM MST

Did 20-month old Amy May die from a blow to the head, or was she brutally beaten and raped?

That's the question attorneys are trying to sort out at the trial of Curtis Jones, the 26-year-old Carlsbad man who is charged with her death in 2004.

Three doctors took the stand Friday, the third day of the trial at Carlsbad's District Court.

Prosecutors say Jones beat and sexually assaulted the child, while defense attorney Gary Mitchell says the baby fell off a couch and hit her head, resulting in a fatal injury. Jones was 17 at the time of the alleged crimes, and was initially tried in juvenile courts.

Friday's proceedings included hours of intense questioning of the doctors as attorneys tried to establish just what caused Amy's death.
Dr. Kwok Sung, a pediatrician at Carlsbad's Downtown Pediatric Clinic, took the stand first that morning for the prosecuting team and explained prior knowledge of Amy's health before her death. Her first visit was in Feb. 2003 when she was checked from head to toe and treated for eczema and thrush, a yeast infection in the mouth.

Several check-ups later she was still being treated for both conditions and weighed around 20 pounds. Her last appointment was on June 28, 2004, less then a month before she died, and according to Dr. Sung she had no signs of abuse or trauma.
Next, emergency room physician Dr. Albert Witte was up for questioning. Witte observed Amy at Carlsbad Medical Center, where he arranged a transfer to University Medical Center in Lubbock.

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New Mexico only has five trauma centers and at the time CMC had no neurosurgeons on staff. In Carlsbad, Amy had been stabilized, her airway re-positioned and IVs filled with fluids and medicines, but she was still unresponsive, her teeth were clenched and she had abnormal posturing of her arms, Witte said.
"Her shallow breaths were consistent to trauma of the head-something you would see if someone were dying," he said.
Both the defense and prosecuting team asked if Amy had been checked from head to toe.

"No, I was trying to get her transferred out," he responded.

When Amy arrived at CMC around noon, she was scaled at a 5 on the Glasgow Coma Scale, Witte said. A healthy human without injury is rated as a 15. Brain death is scored as a 3 on the scale, he said.

According to Witte, it normally takes no longer than 30 minutes to transfer a patient to an aircraft but it took longer in Amy's case; she was finally dispatched at 3:55 p.m. and arrived in Lubbock at 4:37 p.m.

When Curtis Jones' attorney Gary Mitchell questioned Witte, he asked about the Foley catheter that was placed before Amy was transferred, suggesting that the device could have caused the genital trauma suffered by the baby.

Witte said he had no recollection of any trauma caused by the catheter.

"Unfortunately, child abuse is commonly missed as well as the injuries that come with it," Witte said, further explaining that doctors wouldn't normally examine a young patient's rectum without an obvious reason to do so.

The third doctor to take the stand Friday, child abuse pediatrician Leslie Strickler, said she sees 250 patients a year. Around 50 percent of the 350 that are admitted are diagnosed with child abuse, she said. Although Strickler was not directly involved with Amy, she reviewed all reports and images regarding her case.

Prosecuting attorneys asked Strickler to use red and blue markers to indicate areas on a mannequin where Amy had been injured.
The complex skull fracture on the left side of Amy's head was particularly interesting to Strickler because of its shape. Normal skull fractures are not as significant in damage and are typically straight, but Amy's was M-shaped, she said.

"You have to correlate injuries to the history and information given. There's no way the injuries are consistent to her falling off the couch," Strickler said.

Strickler was asked if there was anything else the doctors could have done to save her life, and she said no.

"Amy's injuries were not survivable; she was very close to dying when she came in to the Carlsbad hospital," Strickler said.

Mitchell then picked the mannequin up by the neck and asked Strickler to show where doctors placed an intracranial pressure monitor, a device used to detect levels of pressure inside the skull and brain tissue.

She pointed to the top of a small hole drawn on the top of the mannequin's head and Mitchell asked further questions about the reasoning for the procedure.

"We don't put ICP (monitors) in people who are waking up and getting better," Strickler said. "It's a very common procedure in situations like Amy's," she said.

One of Mitchell's last interrogations included speculation about how the rectal thermometer was used. Strickler and several other experts who testified all agreed that no rectal thermometer would cause the severe trauma Amy received in her genital area.

"I've never heard of it and it's certainly never been published in medical records," Strickler said.